


In the Dark

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Exhaustion, F/F, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Nightmares, Visions, emotional breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24375175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: Finarfin dreams, following the Darkness and the Flight from Valinor.He worries too, that he is losing his mind, even as Anairë and Eärwen try to draw him into their relationship.
Relationships: Anairë/Eärwen/Finarfin | Arafinwë
Comments: 11
Kudos: 34
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Narya (Narya_Flame)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/gifts).



i.

He thinks he is drowning, as the water pulls him under, pulls at his hair as it pulled Elenwë to death in his dreams.

And then there are hands grasping him - dark hair in front of his face - a soft voice promising him from behind that it is alright, they were just helping him to the bath when he fell back into dreams.

He relaxes into Eärwen’s arms as Anairë washes his chest. They did not leave, he thinks, and therefore he must still be in Valinor. He tugs an arm free, so he can run his hand through the water.

There is no ice and no bodies, and he takes a breath.

ii.

“Anairë is alone now,” Eärwen says one day in his fath- broth- his office.

Finarfin nods at that. “As is Nerdanel.”

“Nerdanel did not forsake her husband for my sake.”

“You love her.” It is not a question. Eärwen and he have always understood and loved each other too well for him to not know.

“I do.” She sits on the side of his desk, leaning down to run a hand over his hair.

He remembers brushing it that morning, or so he thinks. Eärwen had been gone before he woke from dreams of the ships and waves crashing over them, and he had drifted through his morning like he was still in the dream, watching Celegorm barely hold Curufin and Celebrimbor from washing overboard.

“Bring her here, if you wish.” There, he has finished something without becoming lost in thoughts.

Eärwen kisses his cheek.

She does not know. He sighs in relief after she leaves the room.

He will have to speak to her soon about his dreams, but he wishes her to have a comfort before he does.

iii.

He dreams and wakes. He tries those nights to sleep peacefully, Eärwen’s warm body next to him.

He can’t. He sees her in the morning looking at him and lies, feeling like his voice will shatter if he says the truth.

She nods, clearly unconvinced. Anairë enters then, her bag at her side, and Eärwen jumps to greet her.

Finarfin smiles at them, and begs his leave from breakfast, so that he may work in the study.

He pulls the windows closed and lights a fire, and tells himself he is not really cold, it was all his dream.

He can still see his brother and sister leading their followers across the Ice when he closes his eyes. He tries not to, until he falls asleep on his desk and wakes to find himself curled in front of the fire, shaking and crying.

iv.

“Arafinwë! Please, love, speak to me.”

He opens his eyes blankly.

Eärwen is here, and Anairë, and he wishes neither of them to see this. He stumbles through his words, such nightmares as he has seen in his dreams spilling out as though they are the elves he has seen in those nightmares washed into the waves.

Anairë leaves. He wants to scream at this, but Eärwen soothes him with a hand on his forehead and whispered words.

“She has gone to find the truth. If Elenwë is gone, we must know. If Manwë will not tell her, I shall seek Ulmo for it.”

He wants to tell them no, to tell them that he cannot take the grief that will come from more of his family challenging the Valar, but he cannot.

Grief pulls him back into sleep, even as he hears Eärwen continue to speak.

v.

He had not expected to fall in love with Anairë too, but here he sits at dinner watching the two of them speak, and he cannot help but yearn to be included.

“Arafinwë?” Anairë speaks as he finishes his last bite of pudding.

“Yes?” He looks at her, and at Eärwen smiling next to her.

“If you wish, I would have you join the two of us in bed tonight.”

He thinks he should not.

He knows he will wake screaming at some point, and what if the next dream is his brother sinking beneath the Ice, or his nephews and sons frozen, or -

Anairë smiles too, and he caves.

He will lie between them, he decides. So long as he does not allow himself to fall asleep, they need not know.

vi.

Finarfin insists that Eärwen spend all her nights in bed with Anairë following her arrival.

It would be unkind, he says, for Eärwen to invite her here in the aftermath of all she has lost, and not grant her the utmost in what she has gained.

He does not speak of his other reasons. It is harder these days to pull himself out of his dreams before Eärwen notices, and he does not wish her to worry now, when they already worry for their children.

He does not even allow himself to think of how he fears himself, and if one day he falls deeper into his dreams.

vii.

Fëanor had been afraid.

Finarfin had recognized that look on his half-brother’s face, when Fingolfin’s thoughts had brushed his mind in the aftermath of the incident.

He knows that those still in Valinor whisper among themselves of how his half-brother had been mad, and Fingolfin too willing to go along with such mad plans.

But neither of his brothers had woken screaming from dreams, as far as Finarfin knows.

Finarfin fears the breakdown he can feel approaching, as surely as he had watched Fëanor’s when he had fled for the woods after their father’s death.

What, he wonders, will they say of Eärwen and Anairë after he falls like his brothers did?

viii.

There are flowers on his bedside table when he awakes, and for a moment he thinks that this has all been a horrible dream.

Then there is a knock on the door, a servant waking the King, and he knows it has not been one.

The light glints off the cold metal crown that rests on the mantle.

He takes a breath, as he thinks of the Silmarils’ cold light too, and wonders if this will all be worth what it has cost.

It is only the sound of Eärwen and Anairë laughing in the hallway as they make their way to his room that stays his conviction it could never be worth such.

ix.

“Arafinwë!”

Eärwen, he thinks, trying to claw his way back, even as he feels tears running down his face and he cannot focus on anything.

Then Anairë is there as well, touching him as though she does not fear this madness, does not worry that the Noldor now have no King on these shores save a madman, and the King has no heirs still in these lands -

“Hush, you are not mad. Hush, Arafinwë,” Anairë says.

He tries. He tries to stop sobbing and he tries to remember what he was doing.

He cannot do either.

“I spoke to Ingwë today, and he spoke to the Valar. You are not mad, Arafinwë, Elenwë-” Anairë took a breath. “Elenwë is dead. Your dreams are true, not your mind falling to pieces with falsehoods.”

He knows he moans then, deep and full of despair.

They pause, as though knowing he has more bad news.

“Fëanáro is dead.” He finally forces the words from his mouth, though they do not make sense, cannot make sense.

One of them inhales quickly, at the same time the other gasps.

Then they both reach for his hands.

“Be that as it may, we need to clean this soot off you.” Eärwen tugs him up.

The fire. He had been trying to put out the fire, he thinks as he stumbles towards the bath held between the two of them.

x.

There are two bodies surrounding him in the dark.

He does not wake from his dreams alone now, and when the dreams threaten to swallow him, one of them reaches out a hand and calls him back from the edge.


End file.
